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1.2.8-Sarah1281
Brick!Club 1.2.8 Billows and Shadows I have to wonder whether real ships when there was a man overboard really refused to stop. Perhaps in a storm or something but I can’t believe they’d be so callous when they need all of their crew and it would take just a couple of minutes to try and pull him up. It is a really great description of the situation Valjean is in, however, how there’s one little slip-up, losing his moral balance, and suddenly he’s just completely abandoned and fighting not to go under. But no one can stay afloat forever, especially not in a storm. I wonder how long it took with Valjean. No support whatsoever, everyone acting as if he’s already gone under from probably before he even hit the water…I think that would be the very worst moment, the moment he gave up and stopped fighting because the crushing defeat of that moment…at least after he’s surrendered to it he can just coast along on the hatred and have an easier time of it since he’s no longer trying to retain any sense of goodness or morality while in conditions ripe for turning even a saint into a monster. “Nevertheless, he struggles. He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, combats the inexhaustible.” So…many…feels. I mean, this isn’t even specifically talking about Valjean but just anyone who finds themselves in this situation but it’s still breaking my heart. Again. There is seriously nothing about him that is not incredibly tragic. He tried not to give into the hate even though he had no real reason not to but he just couldn’t help it. Nineteen years. And he can still see/know that there is goodness out there but it can’t or won’t help him and so it doesn’t even matter. More than that, since he’s drowning and it is flying on completely unaffected it breeds resentment. And he turns to God in desperation since no man can/will help but that is just as futile and there is no salvation coming. Nothing to deliver him and he must just wait until his jailers finally concede to let him go. Nineteen years. I have difficulty getting through a three-hour class and that’s pretty much just sitting there and he made it through nineteen years of Toulon remarkably intact. It makes it sound like Valjean did choose to give up and so there was some element of choice involved though obviously there was a lot of duress involved. It was that or let Toulon kill him. Becoming a beast was his defense mechanism. I’ll bet he saw what Toulon did to those who couldn’t manage it. And at the end “The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.” Yeah, Hugo, I think we picked up on that. But thanks for making it perfectly clear in case we hadn’t.